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The King had other sons, but to Dagmar's boy the people had given their love from the first, as they had to his gentle mother. The old King and his people grieved together. But Valdemar rose above his sorrows. Great as he had been in the days of victory, he was greater still in adversity. The country was torn by the wars of three-score years, and in need of rest.
Events happened, as will be seen, to prevent this taking place and to combine all Scandinavia under one great queen. This is how it came about. King Magnus made a visit to Denmark, where it was arranged to marry Prince Haakon to Margaret, daughter and heir of the Danish king, Valdemar.
"I thought all suffering was past," he said with a heroic smile. "This foolish flesh and blood of mine dies hard! But, as I was saying to thee, Valdemar the farm is thine, and all it holds save some few trifles I have set down to be given to my child. There is little worth in what I leave thee the soil is hard and ungrateful the harvest uncertain, and the cattle few.
There was a tread of firm, yet hurried, footsteps without a murmur of subdued voices a half-suppressed exclamation of surprise and relief from Valdemar, and then the door of the room was hastily thrown open, and a man's tall figure, draped in what seemed to be a garment of frozen snowflakes, stood on the threshold. The noise startled Thelma she opened her beautiful, tired, blue eyes.
Everywhere it was told how, having by help of his mother's bravery escaped the wrath of the wicked Queen Gunnhild, he had lived as a slave in Esthonia, how he had been rescued by Sigurd Erikson and educated at the court of King Valdemar, how he had roved as a viking on the Baltic, and, after invading England, had at last come back to his native land to claim his own.
Now Hakon was told that this same Ole had spent his younger days in Gardarike, and he deemed that the lad must be of the blood of the Norse kings, for it was no secret that King Triggvi Olafson had had a son who had fared east into Gardarike, and been nourished there at the court of King Valdemar, and that he was called Olaf. Earl Hakon had sought far and wide for Olaf Triggvison, but in vain.
Also, you must betray to no man, not even to your foster brother Thorgils, that I am your uncle, or that I know your name and kin; for it is a law held sacred in Gardarike that no one of royal birth shall abide in the land without the sanction of King Valdemar. If it be known that I am wilfully breaking that law, then both you and I will fall into the sorest trouble."
For assurance of this he was to send his three younger sons to Danneberg to be kept in prison with Count Albert until the money was paid. These terms agreed to, the king and prince were set free. Valdemar at once hastened to Denmark, which he found in a fearful state from its having been three years without a head.
"I shall see the old place again, I doubt not, long before you do, Thelma, child," said the stout old bonde, viewing, with a keen, fond glance, the stretch of the vanishing scenery. "Though when once you are safe married at Christiania, Valdemar Svensen and I will have a fine toss on the seas in the Valkyrie, and I shall grow young again in the storm and drift of the foam and the dark wild waves!
Her flag flew over all the once hostile lands to the south and east, clear into Russia. The Baltic was a Danish inland sea. King Valdemar was named "Victor" with cause. His enemies feared him; his people adored him. In a single night foul treachery laid the whole splendid structure low.
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